Fans witnessed an exceptional day of Test cricket on Sunday. Sarah Waris looks back.

This Sunday felt different. As the multiple alarms rang off at half past nine in the morning, there wasn’t the usual dread of moving out of the three layers of blanket that had otherwise greeted me every morning for the past few days. It’s been cold in New Delhi: the morning temperatures have hovered below five degrees for the last few weeks. There was a sense of duty on the first three days of the Test match, pushing yourself out of bed and cosying yourself in front of the TV and the laptop with the first of the many cups of coffee.

At times, your mind would wander. You were envious as the sun beat down in Hyderabad, where the temperature was in the high twenties. There was the biryani discourse as well and the multiple polls of which among Hyderabad, Lucknow or Kolkata offered the best biryani (the right answer is always Kolkata).

You remembered your trip to Hyderabad a few years ago, visiting the famous Ramoji Film City and the hours you spent pearl shopping before the first assignment of the day made you snap out of the daydreaming as the day’s play slowly embraced you.

In many ways, Test cricket is like that. You don’t understand the fuss; get intimidated by the five-day commitment; and want to give up after a brief period of inactivity. It allows for lethargy as there’s more than enough time to wake up, scroll through the scoreboards and get a gist of the happenings. More than often, the silent ending is anticlimactic after the hype purists create at the start of the Test by marking it as an unmissable event in the year.

But Sunday was different. A spring in the step as you hurriedly scrambled to set up two devices. Even as the India-England match was still firmly in India’s favour, or so you thought in complacency, an unfancied West Indies side was close to creating magic in Australia. Please Australia, let them have this.

Over the next few hours, two eerily similar storylines in different continents kept you engaged.

There were the West Indies, without a single win Down Under in 27 years, led by a battered Shamar Joseph, in his debut series, who picked up seven wickets in the innings. Hailing from a family of loggers, he would bowl with lemons, peaches and guavas in Baracara till a near-death experience three years ago made him take up cricket.

After a bold declaration in the first innings, Australia were set a target of 216 in the second. Steve Smith, in a new role as opener, carried his bat through their innings after three low scores as Alzarri Joseph breathed fire and Shamar Joseph, with a suspected broken toe after a Mitchell Starc delivery ended his batting innings on Saturday, unsure whether he’d take the field just a few hours ago, running in at full pace.

There was England, without a single series win in India since 2012/13, led by determined debutant Tom Hartley who picked up seven wickets as well in India’s second leg. Hit for a six on his first ball in Test cricket, Hartley gave away 2-131 in the first innings but bounced back in emphatic manner. India’s 190-run lead had been negated by a young Ollie Pope, who fell four short of a double ton after a string of previous low scores in India. Ben Stokes, playing his first game after a knee injury, claimed crucial moments as he so often does.

Starc and Jasprit Bumrah did what they did best, getting the ball to talk and whizz around all over the batters for teams at their fortress with a proud record to protect. Skipper Pat Cummins went wicketless in an innings for only the sixth time as captain. R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja conceded over 100 runs in the same innings for the first time in a home Test match. Travis Head bagged a king pair. The sensational talent Shubman Gill is on the verge of getting dropped. Indian skipper Rohit Sharma earned criticism for field placements, Cummins for being too “woke”.

But this Sunday was more than just two tightly contested games won by teams that were not even in the fray when the day began. Far from conquering conditions, it was a tale of two sides pushed against the wall, dented and destroyed. West Indies, over the years, have gone from world beaters to having their existence questioned, called “pathetic and hopeless” and for “wasting everyone’s time”. England, although not to that extent, faced brickbats for Bazball after the first batting and bowling innings, where the newly adapted approach of fearless playing was nowhere to be seen. More action, fewer words, please, we requested, with a smirk.

It wasn’t about defying the odds for both teams: it was about dominating them. It wasn’t about the underdog story: it was about thinking they were champions in their hearts even when no one else believed. It was about those emotions that unravelled, those exuberant proclaims of how Test cricket would survive the onslaught of T20 by Shamar Joseph and those dying moments that kept you glued. The audacious hits by Mohammed Siraj that left you beaming as the shadows extended on a long day or the pinpoint yorkers Josh Hazlewood attempted to play out as he looked to deny the Windies. All in vain.

As Shamar sprinted across the Gabba six hours before Stokes and co. did the same in Hyderabad, you looked back at all the hours you have given to Test cricket and how results like these make the long mundane days worthwhile. Through the monotonous results, dull draws and expected collapses, especially with the emergence of the Big Three and the preference of the players for the quick-paced T20s, you have clung on, braving the cold waves and the harsh heat, hoping against hope for a miracle story only to be let down more often than not as expected results came your way.

But every once in a while, there will be days like Sunday that will make it all worthwhile, for the story it weaves makes you gleam. They will also leave you repeating the rather annoying phrase “Test cricket is best cricket” again and again. And for once, we didn’t mind.

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